Sustainable Living | Green Living | Eco Living | Organic Living

Want to do your part to help save the environment? You can participate in the recycling program of your choice in your city or state. Here are some of the different items you can recycle, as well as ways to make your community efforts count.

If you have an old cell phone that you don’t use anymore, you can donate it to a recycling program in your area, so that some of the undamaged parts can be used to create new phones. In some cases, these phones are reprogrammed and given to the less fortunate. Cell phone recycling has even been used to help families with loved ones fighting in Iraq–the phones provided a more effective way for families to communicate with one another. For more information on how you can get involved with this type of recycling program, visit www.grcrecycling.com.

If you use ‘regular’ lightbulbs in your home, you can recycle these as well. The glass and wiring can be used to make new bulbs, and you may even want to switch to using florescent bulbs in your home. These bulbs are much brighter, and don’t use as much energy.

[Read more →]

Are you concerned about the amount of products that are thrown away in your neighborhood, but could be used again? Do you feel that the waste that is collected in your city on a weekly basis is extremely excessive? You may not be able to change the spending or disposing habits of everyone in your neighborhood overnight, but there is one thing you can do to start making a difference–get a recycle bin.

In most cases, you won’t even have to buy the bin; many of the sanitation departments around the country are issuing these bins to households and businesses, in order to encourage recycling. You simply fill the bin with plastic, paper, metal or glass products, and place it curbside on the day your trash is usually picked up. You may also want to request more than one recycle bin so that you can separate all the materials–for example, paper should go in one bin, glass in another, etc.

[Read more →]

Ever wonder where your trash goes after it’s picked up at your front door? More than likely, it is taken to landfills, where it is packed down and stored underground. Hopefully, the majority of the trash will decompose, but there are some materials that will be buried in the landfills forever. Here’s how you can make trash disposal safer in your area.

A landfill is really a depression in the ground that is used for depositing wastes. In some cases, it is built above the ground. When the fill becomes full, it will start to ‘leak’, and this is when it becomes especially hazardous to the environment. It is important to make sure that the landfills in a city or state do not burst or leak, since the wastes will find its way back into the city’s groundwater supply.

[Read more →]

Concern for the environment is continuing to grow, and if you want to know how you can do your part, you can start by taking a trip to the grocery store. When you buy recycled goods, you are supporting other environmentalists just like you who believe that we can save the planet by making wise consumer choices.

Brands like Dixie and Solo, the makers of paper plates, cups, and eating utensils make it easy to buy recycled; the brands offer coupons often on their products, and non of their materials contain CFCs, a hazardous material given off by Styrofoam. You can find smaller cups and plants that are made partially from recycled materials, and you can rinse your plasticware before placing it in the recycle bin so that it can be used again to make more plates, cups, and other picnic accessories.

[Read more →]

When we think of dangerous or toxic waste products, we generally think of the products that factories produce that are harmful to the environment. But did you know that there are a number of household hazardous waste products that we use every day that could be destroying the ozone layer–and our health?

For instance, if you have just finished a home improvement project, and leave certain items like paint or glue around for a long period of time, the fumes could irritate your nasal passages, and could even cause skin irritation and breathing problems. Even things like furniture cleaners, cooking oils, or pesticides can be considered household hazardous waste, so you’ll need to be very careful when you’re disposing of these items. It is probably a good idea to place the discarded items in a separate trash bag, and drive them to your neighborhood’s trash drop-off location if possible. The longer these substances stay in your house, the more they could irritate the nervous or respiratory systems–this is especially dangerous if you have small children living in the house.

[Read more →]

If you are concerned with the lack of recycling that is being done in your city, or if you think that the city’s water supply could stand to be cleaner, you’ll want to get in touch with the environmental services in your area. This department of government is responsible for making sure that each citizen in the area has the best environmental resources available, and your input really could help make a difference.

Clean River programs are one of the responsibilities of Environmental Services. These city officials are commissioned to make sure that the rivers are safe for the wildlife that may be living there, which means making sure that waste is not dumped into the river for disposal. Making sure that the fish that live in these rivers are healthy also protects the people who eat the fish, as well as those who are fishing in various parts of the city or state. The river may also be where parts of the city’s water supply comes from, and if tap, and even bathing water are contaminated with hazardous chemicals, this could be dangerous for the citizens. Respiratory problems, along with increased risk of cancer and high blood pressure can all come from contaminated drinking water, so it’s important for Environmental Services to constantly be checking local rivers and streams for cleanliness.

[Read more →]

The world has suffered from pollution and the improper dumping of hazardous wastes for years now, but there are community groups, governmental agencies, non-profit organizations, and individuals who are doing their part to make sure that our environment is preserved. If you want to keep up with the latest environmental news, here are a couple of resources you may want to refer to.

The Environmental News network is your daily sources for news about the environment, as well as information on natural resources and how you can preserve them. The site contains news articles on how people all over the country–and the world–and caring for the wildlife in their areas, and there is information on how to preserve certain natural resources that we all need, such as water and electricity. You’ll even get information on how you can get your kids involved in recycling and caring for nature. Getting information on different large corporations, such as Shell and Sony will also give you an idea of how to corporate world is working to save the world’s energy. For more information, and to learn how you can get involved, visit www.enn.com.

[Read more →]

Most of the larger, global companies are at last showing signs of accepting the fact that global warming is a reality and directly related to the pollution which they generate. This realization has impacted their operational directives, which now put emphasis on environment sensitiveness. The international air freight industry, which is a significant contributor (about 7%) to the overall carbon emissions figures in 2006, is also expected to chip in and do their bit. In fact, each one of the international cargo airlines should see to it that they not only stop harming the environment, but try to reverse the harm that has already been done.

The international air freight companies are in the middle of the environmental protection controversies; they have agreed and have announced that they will enter into an agreement to contribute compulsorily for projects that protect the environment all over the world. The amount that is earmarked for this purpose has not been fixed, though the agreement stipulates that it should be proportionate to the number of freight services that each cargo airline offers. Europe organized and spearheaded its efforts through the Kyoto Protocol Agreement, which states that the participating countries are committed to bringing down the carbon emission by 2012. USA was conspicuous by its absence at this momentous event.

[Read more →]

The Alaskan pipeline, which is also known as the “Trans Alaska Pipeline System,” was developed to transport oil 800 miles from the North Slope of Alaska to the northernmost port in Valdez, Alaska. The Alaskan oil pipeline crosses three mountain ranges, more than 800 waterways, fault lines, boggy frost-riddled ground and caribou migration grounds. Construction was exceedingly difficult, considering the unforgiving terrain, taking builders roughly two years to complete; moving the first oil through in 1977. The final price tag was $8 billion dollars, but the end result was well worth it, with 15 billion barrels of oil passing through.

“Suddenly people started coming into town,” described JB Carnahan, former police officer in Fairbanks Alaska. “It happened kind of rapidly when it took off. Because I don’t think anybody really believed this monstrous project was going to impact us. I mean, maybe the politicians did, but I think the average guy was just kind of going, ‘Oh sure, we’ve heard this before,’ because this has always been a boom or bust town. And suddenly, there it was.” When the Trans-Alaskan pipeline project began, a flood of people came to town with $3,000 – $5,000 cash burning holes in their pockets, beautiful women arrived from New York and Florida, welders and construction workers drove up from Oklahoma and Texas, South American and Irish immigrants came to collect a check and everyone from secretaries and teachers, to prostitutes and pimps came looking for their fortune. Fairbanks hadn’t seen such activity since the gold rush of the late 1800s! Within a year, the population had doubled in size to 40,000 strong, and the pipeline project had transformed this sleepy two-cop town into a bustling metropolis. Unfortunately, along with all of the business came higher rents, more drugs and more crime.

[Read more →]

Alternate energy continues to fuel widespread debates on how the global climate is faring. Mankind has known for decades that fossil fuels such as coal and oil are not limitless. There will reach a critical point in which we find ourselves running out of these reserves. The question as to when this will happen is unknown but we are becoming aware of the hazards associated with our use of fossil fuels.

What is alternate energy?

[Read more →]